Original building designed by Vaux and Mould, built to support expansionsThe building as constructed in 1888-94
After negotiations with the City of New York in 1871, the Met was granted the land between the East Park Drive, Fifth Avenue, and the 79th and85th Street transverse roads inCentral Park. A red-brick and stone building was designed by American architectCalvert Vaux and his collaboratorJacob Wrey Mould. Vaux's ambitious building was not well received; the building was dubbed by critics as a "mausoleum", itsHigh Victorian Gothic style was already considered dated prior to completion, and the president of the Met termed the project "a mistake".[6]
Within 20 years, a new architectural plan engulfing the Vaux building was already being executed. Since that time, many additions have been made, including the distinctiveBeaux-Arts Fifth Avenue facade, Great Hall, and Grand Stairway. These were designed by architect and Met trusteeRichard Morris Hunt, but completed by his son,Richard Howland Hunt in 1902 after his father's death.[7] Thearchitectural sculpture on the facade is byKarl Bitter.[8]
The wings that completed the Fifth Avenue facade in the 1910s were designed by the firm ofMcKim, Mead & White. The modernistic glass sides and rear of the museum are the work ofRoche-Dinkeloo.Kevin Roche was the architect for the master plan and expansion of the museum for over 40 years. He was responsible for designing all of its new wings and renovations including but not limited to the American Wing, Greek and Roman Court, and recently opened Islamic Wing.[9]
The Met measures almost1⁄4-mile (400 m) long and with more than 2 million square feet (190,000 m2) of floor space, more than 20 times the size of the original 1880 building.[10][11] The museum building is an accretion of over 20 structures, most of which are not visible from the exterior. The City of New York owns the museum building and contributes utilities, heat, and some of the cost of guardianship.
In the early 1890s, the Austrian-born sculptorKarl Bitter was selected to provide the sculptural motifs for the new building's monumental entrance facade. In the spandrels of the museum's central structure, he placed sixportrait medallions of famed Renaissance artistsRaphael,Michelangelo,Albrecht Dürer,Rembrandt,Donato Bramante, andDiego Velázquez.[12] On the extensions flanking either side of the larger central structure, he also designed fourcaryatids that represented different artistic fields: painting, sculpture, architecture, and music.[12][13] The most elaborate sculptural feature of the facade was intended to be four sculpture groupings representing major epochs in the history of art:Ancient,Classical,Renaissance, andModern. A lack of funds and disagreement over how to represent "modern art", led that element of the facade's design to be abandoned; the only vestige of these planned sculptures is four pyramids of roughly-hewn limestone atop the columns.[14]
The Charles Engelhard Court of the American Wing features the facade of the Branch Bank of the United States, a Wall Street bank that was facing demolition in 1913.[15][16]
Memantra byFrank Stella on exhibit in the roof garden
TheIris andB. Gerald Cantor Roof Garden is located on the roof near the southwestern corner of the museum. The garden's café and bar is a popular museum spot during the mild-weathered months, especially on Friday and Saturday evenings when large crowds can lead to long lines at the elevators. The roof garden offers views ofCentral Park and the Manhattan skyline.[17][18] The garden is the gift of philanthropists Iris and B. Gerald Cantor, founder and chairman ofsecurities firmCantor Fitzgerald.[19] The garden was opened to the public on August 1, 1987.[20]
The roof garden has views of theManhattan skyline from a vantage point high above Central Park.[25] The views have been described as "the best in Manhattan."[26]Art critics have been known to complain that the view "distracts" from the art on exhibition.[27]New York Times art criticKen Johnson complains that the "breathtaking, panoramic views of Central Park and the Manhattan skyline" creates "an inhospitable site for sculpture" that "discourages careful, contemplative looking."[28] WriterMindy Aloff describes the roof garden as "the loveliest airborne space I know of in New York."[29] The café and bar in this garden are considered romantic by many.[25][30][31] In 2025, the Met announced that the roof garden would close for five years starting that October.[32][33]
In 2024, initial building plans were released for a half a billion dollar architectural expansion to the SW corner of the MET Museum; the expansion was announced as being planned for completion by 2030.[34]
The museum's main building was designated a city landmark by theNew York City Landmarks Preservation Commission in 1967,[2] and its interior was separately recognized by the Landmarks Preservation Commission in 1977.[3] The Met's main building was designated aNational Historic Landmark in 1986, recognizing both its monumental architecture, and its importance as a cultural institution.[35]
^"Metropolitan Museum of Art".National Historic Landmark summary listing. National Park Service. Archived fromthe original on October 9, 2012. RetrievedFebruary 18, 2013.
^Gross, Michael,Rogues' Gallery, The Secret History of the Moguls and the Money That Made the Metropolitan Museum, Broadway Books, New York, 2009, p. 75.
^Schevill, Ferdinand, 'Karl Bitter: A Biography", The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois, 1917 p. ix
^The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin (Summer 1995)
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"An Edifice for Art: The Architecture of the Met" onYouTube,Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2020
Media related toMetropolitan Museum of Art - Main Building at Wikimedia Commons
